Actor and director Diego Luna’s new show, Pan y Circo (which translates into Bread and Circus) premieres on Amazon Prime today. In his new show, Luna brings into expert voices to discuss different and pressing topics. Luna commented on the mission of the project:
“To have the possibility to sit these people down and make sure somebody listens, while I listen. That, to me, is the beauty of this project.”
Pan y Circo looks to tackle difficult topics from the Mexican perspective. This includes femicide, as Mexico has one of the highest murder rates of women. Other topics include the illegal drug trade, immigration, identity, and racism. Luna hopes that what they’re talking about on his show can be accepted on a universal level.
“If you say that, wherever you live, you’re not in touch with gender violence, if you say that, where you are in whatever community you live in, there is no show of racism … if you say that migration is a local issue, or an issue of Latin America, I think you’ll be missing a lot.”
Luna also expressed:
“It confronted me. I sat down and said: ‘Well, I’m not a racist, but by listening to these people I realized how much I benefit from a racist system, how much I’ve benefited my whole life. To me that is what happens when you don’t want to listen to others – you think you’re part of a solution, it’s easy to feel part of a solution, you can put a like on a post, or retweet something and you’re part of a solution, you’re there, you’re doing something, but you’re not.
To actually be ready to do something, you have to first let the transformation happen in you. What is clear is that, today, we have all learned to interact or co-live with levels of violence, of injustice, of inequality, of corruption, of impunity that are horrible. And we accept that this is something that can be real, that can be, in fact, our present. How do we adjust this in our heads so that we don’t get frustrated, or affected by it, we manage to keep going.”
Luna also discussed the reason for including food in his show, as food can bring people together:
“It’s interesting how food can trigger a connection because you and I, we might think different, we might believe in different stuff, we might have different politics, but what we can definitely do is share a piece of bread, share a dish. Food brings us together in that way.”
Luna also talked about the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico and how that helped to get people interested in learning more about different cultures:
“The idea of having more outlets for stories to come out has benefited the specificity of the stories. It’s still a challenge, but not the same as before. Shows like Narcos make that clear. If audiences get hooked, they’re willing to make an effort. I think that is what audiences are starting to look for, this attention to specificity, where you want to be able to see something that is unique and exists and connects you to something else.”
Luna’s show is now available on Amazon Prime.
Read the full article on the Guardian.
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